Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

In addition to voting Rep. Rush Holt's dangerous Election Reform bill out of committee today (see this late Tuesday story for details), the U.S. House Administration Committee on Tuesday also unanimously voted to dismiss four of the five U.S. House races from last November which had been challenged in Congress under the Federal Contested Elections Act.

Only the contested Jennings/Buchanan race in Florida's 13th district --- which has gotten a great deal of mainstream media coverage for the 18,000 undervotes recorded by Sarasota's touch-screen voting systems in the election decided by a 369 vote margin --- will move forward. Late last week, the committee voted on party lines to send that contest to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) for investigation.

Included in the four dismissals on Tuesday was the contest filed by vote-rigging whistleblower Clint Curtis (D) in his race against (allged vote-rigger) Tom Feeney (R) in Florida's 24th district. Late Monday night we reported that was likely occur.

Tonight, we received some comments from Capitol Hill staffers on the committee's reasons for the dismissals...

Curtis's challenge had been built on sworn voter affidavits collected by campaign volunteers in a door-to-door, precinct-by-precinct canvass. The campaign says the affidavits collected reveal a 12 to 24 point difference, in Curtis's favor, from the final election results as registered by the district's paperless Diebold touch-screen voting systems. Feeney was declared the winner after the election by 16 points, according to the machine-based final tally, despite a Zogby International poll just prior to the election which declared the two candidates to be in a statistical dead heat.

Curtis was never allowed to testify before the committee, nor did they review the "hard evidence" which his campaign claims had revealed that Feeney likely lost the race.

Instead, as one Congressional staffer who works for a committee member explained via email to The BRAD BLOG tonight, "Basically, everyone felt that affidavits aren't enough in a secret ballot election and they didn't have any other evidence."

The Curtis camp was more than dubious of the "secret ballot" explanation for disregarding sworn voter affidavits.

"In an election where the source code is proprietary, the only reliable way to evaluate the election system, is by voter affidavits," Curtis said after hearing of today's dismissal.

Now we don't claim to be an attorney, but our understanding is that sworn affidavits are acceptable for use in most American courts of law. Yet, in this case, hundreds of such sworn affidavits from voters are seen as "not enough" --- even as prima facea evidence to suggest that further investigation is warranted.

So if sworn affidavits are not enough, and the candidates are not given access to the voting machines suspected of failing, or the source code for the software used on those machines, and there are no existing "paper trails" whatsoever (for what little that would be worth), we're left scratching our head wondering what "evidence" would be humanly available to anyone, ever, in such a contest.

Short of a video tape of Tom Feeney himself, actively rigging the district's voting machines in his favor, what "evidence" could possibly exist if Congress will not allow for a legitimate, independent investigation of the voting systems and source code used on them?

In other words, by both disallowing the use of sworn affidavits and failing to give candidates access to the machines as they have requested, it seems that there is no way in the WORLD that any candidate could ever successfully challenge such an election.

Worse still, the same House committee today also voted in favor of an Election Reform bill, now on its way to the House floor, which would allow for the continued use of such unverifiable electronic voting systems, along with the same, legalized lack of disclosed source code.

I will simply mention the seminal case of Conley v Gibson, 355 US 41 (1957), where the Supreme Court held:

"In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief".

Clearly Curtis had such a "set of facts in support of his claim" and such facts should have allowed for further investigation of the matter. There may well have been further evidence. But it was in the machines. And either Curtis or other investigators, such as the GAO, should have been given access to material in order to determine whether or not there was further evidence in support of the set of facts which Curtis offered to the Committee.

In response to some of these points, the staffer wrote to us: "I agree about the reasoning for why there's no other evidence but without it, there was nothing we could do. You just can't expect people to tell you who they voted for to your face and use that in court."

We respectfully dissent from that opinion. At least until someone explains to us how else such a challenge could ever be made given the system at play in the Florida elections.

We also are left continuing to wonder exactly what it will take before Democrats come to understand what is going on here, and what is truly at stake in the ongoing fight for Election Integrity in America.

A "good guy" voting machine expert will have to attempt, and succeed at rigging some sort of election, say, 1-3 counties in a particular Congressional district. Then, after the election, the e-voting expert comes forward and shows exactly how it was done. But not until after the winner is sworn in and takes the oath. It has to be taken all the way to swearing in, because otherwise the deniers (who get 95% of the airwaves) can predictably claim that nothing actually happened, and marginalize the issue.

If you were going to do it as an expose (which likely would send you to jail) and document it, AND document the aftermath (especially if the results are thrown enough to get the attention of the voting integrity community, who would predictably yet again be inneffective at actually getting any accountability***) and how none of the checks worked to catch the problem.

***Not meant to disparage the hard working voting integrity folks, but more an admission of how strong the adversary is.

Possible strategy (although he/she is still going to jail) - the person might want to do 2 districts: a heavily favored Repub, and a heavily favored Dem. But not rediculously favored, like Charlie Rangel (~95%-5%). In each case, boost their expected easy victory (say, 65%-35%)into a very easy actual victory (say, 80%-20%). It won't actually change an election - that would be cruel to both candidates, and their families.

I can't think of how we will ever be able to rub the media's face in it and the politicians face in it for them to see the problem.

Well, sratch that - I can think of one other thing. A VR-wide, Ameria-wide campaign to raise enough money ($1 Million?) to pay an army of main stream professional pollsters whatevery their normal fee is for a large scale exit poll - with 3 main differences. One (1): The buyers would be us, the public. We can raise enough to pay the pollsters just as much or more as the 6 Big Networks did in 2006. Two (2) The data - all the data would be available to THE PUBLIC as soon as the polls close - because WE paid to be the customer. The Big 6 could help pay for the poll too, but they don't get to hog the data for weeks or even minutes. Three (3): The poll would be designed with the highest priority being documenting the accuracy of the election. I'm sure exit polling science is developed enough that they already know how to focus on accuracy, they just need to be PAID to do it. By US.

This far out from an election, if we start raising money for a comon fund to fund and exit poll, conducted by expert pollers who are paid by the public to do the exit poll focused on accuracy first, and political food last. I think we could raise enough money to do it all - accuracy, plus what the networks crave.

I'm sure there could be lots of no cost/low cost volunteers, in addition to the money from the public.

More on my post above - on a publicly funded (or public + the Big 6 Networks). Two things to consider - in Q1 2007, Dems raised 80 Million and Repubs raised 50 Million. Think about all the money spent. Certainly all of us could raise a couple million dollars, if that's what the price was. The other thing is that we'd also want to know about the methods used, so that those could also be scrutinized by the public.

The House now knows beyond a reasonable doubt that it has seated the wrong person in at least one instance: Feeney.

And as I explained in an earlier thread the House just doesn't want to hear about such things, and thus has now hidden behind a technicality.

The lesson to politicos is clear: election theft works and once you're in the door you can cease worrying about consequences for the theft even if you are caught.

The rest of us will be left to shoulder the consequences of the theft.

BTW, the wording used to invoke the technicality sounds like someone on the Hill's been reading this blog again, and again came away unclear on the concept. The concept being that sworn affidavits do not displace or invalidate the secret ballot, but that such should only be used sparingly and only in an urgent situation... which this clearly was.

But the House didn't get to piss in this mix and thus doesn't like the taste... so the solution is for the House to first acknowledge that ELECTION THEFT HAPPENS, and then for it to put into place their own "official" ballot recovery techniques... sans the current and overly onerous burdens of proof placed on plaintiffs.

And if the "official" ballot recovery technique somehow still involves DRE printouts then we should just heave out this lot and elect new ones... and repeat until they get the message...

It's an interesting concept. Of course, it MUST change the results of an election (even if that's "cruel to both candidates, and their families") because otherwise, there is no case. There's no victim. (No, voters whose votes are stolen, swapped, or lost are NOT victims in the eyes of the law or the congress --- that has been proven time and time again.)

So, pick two candidates who are supposed to win by big margins and hack them to a tight loss of less than .01%. Then, when the case comes to court, come forward and admit the crime.

As for the wasting money on polls, why bother. The media will not report them. The only purpose of polls is to motivate the people to revolution. If you've got the people armed and ready to go to the streets, then that's a different story.

There were polls in 2000, 2002, 2004 and even 2006. The media ignore them and the people don't care.

The whole world is counting on you to set things right. You, specifically. Not the weakling excuses for journalists of the mainstream, war-profiteering defence-contractor owned media (eg NBC is owned by war profiteer General Electric), counting on continued erosion of anti-trust laws so they can further dominate and smother news. Human rights and democracy all over the planet depend on independent journalism sources such as www.blackboxvoting.org, Raw Story and Bradblog. The world is hungry for *honest* news. American credibility has been seriously undermined, and the fabric of the nation's very democracy mangled by the cowboys, lackeys, corporate whores, and fools who presently hold power in the United States government, and the shameful milquetoast media whores and foul-mouthed wingnut buffoons of the mainstream media. "Lack of evidence" didn't stop these same people from getting into an unnecessary war, but it did stop them from protecting America' democracy, and didn't stop the media whores from behaving like horny and over-excited cheerleaders for Team Chickenhawk. Go figure.

Here in TN, in our battle to get VVPB made a state law; we keep (for 3 years now...) being stopped by a Dem; a powerful legislator from Memphis; a place that had a proven election fraud attempt last summer. Makes me wonder if the Dems are also in bed with the voting machine vendors, especially in places like Memphis... Makes me wonder about Representative U. Jones...

Guys, guys, c'mon. How about CA50: in that case there's no power or jurisdiction to hear the evidence, and now, where the Congress is forced to admit that there is jurisdiction to hear the evidence, THEY DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

Not only do they not want to hear it, they make statements that in effect directly mean that all evidence that would contradict or impeach SECRET FIRST COUNTS is insufficient, like voter affidavits.

Do we recall Bush v Gore? Both partial recounts (Gore's request) and full recounts (the Florida Supreme Court's order) were struck down. First the US Supreme court stayed the full recount on the grounds that "irreparable damage" would occur to Bush's "apparent victory" when ALL recounts threaten such damage (and appropriately so), and then the court said differences in standards county to county meant that equal protection was violated. Then time ran out on December 13 after the December 12 Bush v Gore second and final opinion.

WHEN IT COUNTS (I'm not talking state races or dog catcher) nothing matters except the first count. I mean presidential races, for example.

Recounts and audits can all be thrown out under broad Bush v. Gore rules. Moreoever, complete flexibility is retained by the US SUpreme court with the language sometimes referred to as the "no precedent" language in the opinion, and thus contrary to popular wisdom the "no precedent" language that says Bush v. Gore is "restricted to its facts" more or less actually makes things far worse, not better.

And, no trade secret information will be produced according to FL-13 trial court rulings, and no sworn affidavits will be considered by EITHER party in the House Admin committee.

So, for how long are bradblog readers going to sit around and assume this whole picture is a good faith or unfortunate process?

Benjamin075: I've been saying that for year. A good guy, hacking the presidential election, and exposing the farce of e-vote democracy. I hope it happens. Doing it legally is taking too long.

Have someone with 1% in the polls, some 3rd party guy, win the presidential election.

The CIA is controlling elections in other countries. They're on record, saying it saves money over a coup. Why is it so unfathomable that it's happening here? Do you think these proven liars "drew the line" in hacking elections in OUR country? Yeah, right! They're "ethical" when it comes to OUR democracy...

Paul: And by "congress", we mean Dems, too! The Dems seem to be hurt, in that anomalies favor Republicans close to 100%...which begs the question, "Are the Dems in on it, for some reason we're not pinpointing?" Why aren't they fighting for e-vote reform? VERY suspicious to me!!!!!!! VERY!!!!!!!!!!

I have to conclude, that the Dems in power are somehow benefitting from "hacking democracy." There is no other conclusion.

This implies, that there is no difference between the Dems & Republicans in power, and the "liberal Dems" and the "conservative Republicans" are the ones targetted by e-voting. There's an extremely low amount of liberal Dems and conservative Republicans. Just about non-existent.

But they tell us the Dems are liberal (false) and the Republicans are conservative (false). For the most part, they are very similar to me.

Thanks Dredd; the question I keep coming up with is why are all these cases regarding election issues being 'lost' for the most part(Finley's Alameda verdict and Cayhouga County notwithstanding) ? It would seem as though the plaintiff's are not being well served by their attorney's; if depositions were what was necessary, why weren't those gathered -instead of affidavits-in the Feeney challenge?
I have watched case after case where the 'logic' was correct only to have the court's judgment not confirm the logic because the case law being used wasn't sufficiently researched or acted upon.
Wish I had an answer.

That being said, I agree with much of what Paul Lehto says, and particularly that the grand weakness of the audit concept is that
a) If you wait to announce results until audits are done, you facilitate tampering

but

b) Anything after the election results are announced is subject to cancellation at will.

By the way, when I mentioned that the Holt Bill does nothing whatever to facilite counting in public or public oversight, I was told it could be a step toward a goal. Well, a goal isn't a goal unless you state it. Therefore, the Holt Bill is NOT a step toward the goal of counting in public with public oversight. What it is, I'm not exactly sure because it doesn't give us public oversight and doesn't get the right candidate in office.

Everything about the situation where "someone in charge" gets to keep the only copy that legally matters of peoples' ballots, in an essentially blind trust is promoting the chances of cheating being effective! From the time the ballots leave the legitimate voters' hands to the time they are recorded through the legal challenge period they are subject to risks of subtraction, addition or alteration. Possession might just as well be 99/100 of the law, not 9/10.

Does RFK Jr.'s lawsuit seem important. Last I heard he was undr a gag order. . Says Karl Rove and Tim Griffin should go to jail for criminal offenses re. election fraud.Could it be that this is the way it's all going to come out? Surely John Conyers didn't just give up and forget the massive amount of time and work documented in the Ohio fiasco.

The answer is that there are a lot more voters than there are "administration", and Franklin's quote is true, "We must all hang together or we will all hang separately"; if this is a matter of public record you will have plenty of people who feel the same way who can at least stand up for you, currently, you don't even have that.

And "The Zapkitty'? Nice framing, I don't have any 'mortal dread' of the secret ballot, I just am perfectly capable of recognizing the enabling precursors for a con game when I see them. And we know the answer to what happens when we can't verify our votes: we get the crap that we've been getting lately.

If you had exhaustive, accurate exit polling, you could keep the secret ballot. Odd, that you can't get any exit polling data anymore, it isn't published. And the truth is folks, even if you had decent exit polling, the current media noise machine could, and would, shout it down.

A lot of what Paul Lehto has said is exactly right, if the first count is whacked, we're screwed.

A Congress compromised through blackmailing with information obtained through illegal and unchecked surveillance, electronic and otherwise, could be used to force members to do whatever someone wanted. No one is perfect. Keep enough of the compromised individuals in power, and voila! You would have what appears to be a balanced group of Dems and Repubs, yet all are compromised! Don't get me wrong, I don't think that our whole congress is compromised; but it could be, if the people we vote for are not the ones seated to power, for whatever reason. Ah, but what do I know...

Wait.. are you saying there's a chance voting machines may not be perfect? ::rolls eyes:: hehe. There are way too many "good ol boys" getting away with waaayy too much crap right now. Sometimes I feel like I might as well stop voting.